Numeric: Pretty Colours are no Substitute for Substance.

by David Klemke on July 26, 2018

It’s no secret that I’m a bit of a sucker for eye candy. Sure I’ve played (and enjoyed) my share of games that have gone for substance over style but I’m far more likely to enjoy something if it’s visually pleasing and manages to get all the usual trappings in as well. However that penchant for visual flair can easily lead you astray as judging a game by its screenshots is the same as judging a book by its cover. That, dear reader, is how I ended up playing NUMERIC, a bargain basement platformer that suckered me in with semi-decent visuals, tricking me into thinking there was actually a game underneath it to be played.

NUMERIC has a story but it’s so ham fisted in its implementation it’s barely worth mentioning. It’s clear that English is a second language for the developer, as the description of the game on Steam will attest:

After a long sleep, the Model “98” finds itself in an abandoned place away from the usual house. There is little left in the memory, in addition to the memory of old friends. Where are they? What happened, why is everything so empty and lonely around?

With no story to drive the game along there’s only 2 things left for it: the visuals and the gameplay. One of those is above average, but that won’t be enough for the astounding lack in the other two.

So visually NUMERIC has a lot going for it. It manages its own spin on the current low-poly aesthetic that’s all the rage with indies these days. If I had to hazard a guess though the majority of those assets have come from the Unreal Marketplace and all of them have been dumped directly into the game’s files. That means for a game which has barely an hour of gameplay in it and a handful of environments the entire package clocks in at a whopping 6GB; not something you’d expect given its low-poly nature. NUMERIC does make good use of modern lighting effects to make for good screenshot bait but, beyond that, there’s really not much more to it. Honestly I should’ve expected as much when I was trawling through the new releases section of Steam, but a man can dream can’t he?

The core game play is 3D platforming, with all the usual pitfalls coupled with a distinct lack of any refinement or inspiration. You simply have to get to the end of the level, usually through hitting a few switches to unlock doors whilst avoiding a few obstacles. The game will always trigger a cutscene whenever you’re triggering an action which is skippable but, honestly, after the first time we’ve seen it there’s no reason to trigger the cutscene again to remind us of what is happening. Worse still the hit detection is very unreliable, often failing to trigger multiple times until you figure out where the hitbox for the switch your or character is. Couple that with level design that isn’t exactly well thought out and you’ve got a bunch of levels which can be finished in obviously unintended ways and others which are just exercises in frustration as you work you way around the developer’s mistakes.

NUMERIC then comes to an unceremonious end with a screen that says “Thanks for playing The End 2018” not even trying to attempt to close off the loose jumble of threads it thinks counts as a story. I would be kinder to the developer if this was their first title but it’s not, they’ve got no less than 3 titles for sale on Steam, all of which were released this year. Looking at the others it’s clear that they’ve found their formula and are running with it, hoping to churn out title after title until they hit on something. Whilst admirable it doesn’t lend itself to developing quality titles and won’t do them any favours when it comes to standing out of the torrent of games that are released on Steam every day. What they’re producing isn’t as egregious as some of the asset flip titles I’ve seen, but its close.

NUMERIC does the very bare minimum to be counted as a game, luring in visually driven idiots like myself in the hopes of finding something worth playing. Whilst they’ve managed to make some good looking visuals with the help of marketplace assets that’s where the substance stops. There’s nothing about this game that warrants playing it, nor even watching a stream of it on Twitch or a Let’s Play on YouTube. The fact that the developer is churning out title after title should tell you a lot about the motivations behind this game’s creation and none of them should compel you to spend money on this game. You’d think I would’ve learnt my lesson after Elementium, but alas, it seems I’m a slow learner. Hopefully you’ll head my words and let this one pass through to the keeper.

Rating: 3.5/10

NUMERIC is available on PC right now for $1.99. Total play time was 54 minutes that I’ll never get back again.